100 Movie Challenge 2015 - # 135: The Fog

Director: John Carpenter

Genre: Horror

Runtime: 89 minutes

Year: 1980

Starring: Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, Janet Leigh, Hal Holbrook, Tom Atkins, John Houseman, James Canning, Ty Mithcell, John F. Goff, George Flower, Charles Cyphers, Jim Haynie, Nancy Loomis

Description: Legend says that Antonio Bay was built in 1880 with blood money obtained from shipwrecked lepers but no one believes it. On the eve of the town's centennial many plan to attend the celebrations, including the murdered lepers.

Review: At the beginning of the film you already learn that something bad is going to happen: lights turning on and off, electric appliances showing malfunctions, breaking windows, moving furniture. The message is clear. And it’s the not knowing what it is, that makes this movie scary. A fog is coming and something bad is hiding in the fog.

Sometimes the omens are hard to explain, they don’t seem to fit the rest of the film. Like a coin turning into a piece of driftwood, and that same piece of wood changing letters and bursting into flame. The movie loses its logic. But luckily the fog and what’s hiding in the fog gives us the tension and excitement.

There isn’t a clear leading character. There are several character we are introduced to, so we follow more than one in this story.

“The Fog” is directed by John Carpenter, the man that also gave us “Halloween” and “The Thing”. “The Fog” is a solid horror film, but never reaches the level of the two other films.

Rating: 3/ 5